Maintaining civility, standards, integrity in Oak Park

Opinion: Columns

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018 1:05 PM

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By Bonita Robinson

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It is a bizarre, historically uncharacteristic, and sad day in Oak Park when our village government chooses to defend how a resident chooses to impact their neighbor's property. For my family, this sad day has, in reality, been a nine-month ordeal that revealed a lack of integrity in the village's code enforcement process, encouraging incivility and threatening property rights.

It started one evening last July when an intensely bright light burst into my family's home. Our new neighbors had installed a floodlight on the side of their house, directly facing and illuminating the interior and exterior of that entire side of our house, including our kitchen, dining room, basement and garage, as if it were daytime.

Having lived in Oak Park for over 40 years, my experience is that easy-to-solve issues like redirecting a light can be, should be, and usually are resolved between neighbors. However, when the light continued to shine into our home after I spoke to one of our neighbors about redirecting it onto their property alone, I reluctantly filed a complaint with the village.

The village formally declared the light a "nuisance," initiated "nuisance" code enforcement, and set a standard of code compliance for our neighbors by giving them written and in-person instructions to "remove or redirect" the light off of our property by established deadlines. Multiples deadlines were missed and a second intrusive light was installed, escalating noncompliance. Although superficial changes reduced the (now two) lights' brightness and duration, the still intrusive lights were never "removed or redirected" from our property as per village instructions.

Despite this, the village decided, bizarrely, to end the code enforcement process prematurely, abandoning its standard for compliance, and permitting the light trespass and pollution to continue at our neighbors' whim, even knowing that one light sometimes flashed on and off into our home over 100 times in a single evening, similar to the erratic lighting of a haunted house.

The village, instead of defending how I prefer to use my property, chose to defend how my neighbors prefer to use my property. It abandoned the standards it had set for code compliance and for protecting a resident's property rights, revealing a lack of integrity in village code enforcement.

Reflecting this lack of integrity, village officials suggested that my family initiate "mediation," and the village president declared that we should "sue" our neighbors. But why does the village expect residents to take over a problem that persists only because it failed to complete the code enforcement service paid for by residents' ever-increasing taxes?

Others have noticed a decline in village governance also. According to the biennial National Citizen Survey (NCS), Oak Parkers' 2017 evaluations of the village's "general" governance decreased in all areas, with dramatic drops in "Overall Direction," "Acting in the Best Interest of Oak Park," and "Being Honest."

The village must recommit to Oak Park standards by enforcing the abandoned compliance standards until the lights no longer intrude onto our property, adopting a lighting ordinance to prevent others from experiencing such light trespass and pollution, and developing a formal process to correct village mistakes and failures.

It is Oak Park residents' responsibility to maintain civility, but, at least until the next election, it is the responsibility of village administrators and board members to restore our government's standards and integrity.

I'm sorry you have been subjected to obviously arrogant neighbors and their lighting. What punks. Here's a thought: Buy four or five equally bright or brighter lights and put them in your front and back yard and side of your house and aim them right at their windows, doors and into their front and back yards. Keep adding lights until something gives. I wish you could stand up some VERY loud speakers and play death metal all night, but ignorant HOA's and cities usually have noise ordinances and they could send the cops out for that. But they won't have light ordinances (yet). Fight fire with fire, and an even bigger fire. Good luck! Mike

Ramona Lopez Facebook Verified

Posted: June 8th, 2018 7:29 PM

Since one homeowner is directing a nuisance light onto his/her neighbors property. Shouldn't said neighbor stand on their property with a 15 foot piece of conduit or pipe and direct it towards said light. Both projecting from the owners property and creating a nuisance. I see no difference, so the village should treat the latter as equal. One's quality of life/sleep is much more important than a $40 light.

Vicki Young Facebook Verified

Posted: June 8th, 2018 4:16 PM

Ms. Robinson, you are right that you should be defended against light trespass in Oak Park. This is an outrage! You are welcome to join our fb group for support and information. You can also see the group without joining, you just cannot comment. I am sorry for your stress. It is completely maddening! https://www.facebook.com/groups/155084901640186/

Donald Berry from Pasadena Facebook Verified

Posted: June 7th, 2018 3:10 PM

This is a serious issue for many. These lights disturb sleep and therefore cause a host of health issues on top of being very unpleasant to look at.

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